The Life of the Fly 



also easily penetrates the meat: I see it dis- 

 appear as though it were dipping into butter. 

 It cuts its way, levying, as it goes, a prelim- 

 inary toll, but only of liquid mouthfuls. Not 

 the smallest solid particle is detached and swal- 

 lowed. That is not the maggot's diet. It 

 wants a broth, a soup, a sort of fluid extract 

 of beef which it prepares itself. As digestion, 

 after all, merely means liquefaction, we may 

 say, without being guilty of paradox, that the 

 grub of the Bluebottle digests its food before 

 swallowing it. 



With the object of relieving gastric 

 troubles, our manufacturing chemists scrape 

 the stomachs of the Pig and Sheep and thus 

 obtain pepsin, a digestive agent which pos- 

 sesses the property of liquefying albuminous 

 matters and lean meat in particular. Why 

 cannot they rasp the stomach of the maggot I 

 They would obtain a product of the highest 

 quality, for the carnivorous worm also owns its 

 pepsin, pepsin of a singularly active kind, as 

 the following experiments will show us. 



I divide the white of a hard-boiled egg into 

 tiny cubes and place them in a little test-tube. 

 On the top of the contents, I sprinkle the eggs 

 of the Bluebottle, eggs free from the least 

 stain, taken from those laid on the outside of 



34J 



